Eva Young wrote:
WM: Actually, this is the connection between Abbott Northwestern's traffic study and the 35W access project. The access problems on 35W had been talked about informally and formally in South Mpls. since the day the freeway opened. Phillips had problems up the wazoo at this point, as did Central, Whittier, Lyndale, and Bryant. I talked to Michael Bonsignore, then major wig at Honeywell, the summer day when Urban Ventures was celebrating getting the soccer field in. I said, "I'm asking you to be big for us. Help us make these changes." It was not limited to 35W. It was a whole raft of things. I asked the same thing of Gene Torrey (since retired) at Abbott.Good for Robert on this one. He's finally standing up and being counted, and acting like the person who ran for office that I supported strongly.Read the entire Strib coverage of last night's 35W Access Project "Open House":http://startribune.com/stories/462/3433190.html
from the strib article:
Lilligren also alleged that pressure had been exerted to serve corporate interests such as Abbott Northwestern Hospital, which initiated the traffic studies in 1997, Honeywell, and later Wells Fargo, which bought Honeywell's Phillips neighborhood complex.
I was the one who asked Council Member Herron to convene the meeting with the institutions after repeating to him what I'd said to Bonsignoire and Torrey. From this meeting sprung the Phillips Partnership. Abbott came through with the traffic stud, they agreed to take on at that meeting. Honeywell came through with seed money, I think. I'm not sure about that part anymore. The president of St. Mary's agreed to do something, but I can't now remember what. It may have been to shepherd creating what became Phillips Partnership.
At the time I had two issues vis-a-vis 35W: health and safety issues on and around 35W and the great mustache on the Mona Lisa that it is--ugh-g-l-y ugly.
He said that at one meeting this year, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin urged officials to support the project, saying there had been a "handshake deal," an obligation to corporations to make the project happen.WM: On Thursday night Lilligren began, a list of items in his land, and said, "This is my house, right there" pointing to a spot on the model, thereby announcing his conflict of interest as the official representative for the entire Eighth Ward. Lilligren also sat on the PAC continuously for the last four years and in all that time he has not been able to persuade the majority of that same group to his position. I'm sure that Peter McLaughlin did urge people both official and unofficial to support the project--that's his job. We voted for him to lead, he lead. What a concept.
McLaughlin, who spoke at Thursday's meeting after Lilligren, didn't directly respond. But he said afterward that Lilligren keeps changing his account of what McLaughlin told him and "is just making the stuff up."WM: In my youth, I once was involved in a mass halucination while walking down the street with several friends and several members of the corps de ballet of the Royal Ballet. We swore to each other that were watching a fire and that a building burned down--empty building near Gaslight Square in St. Louis. The next day, when several of us walked by again and the building was intact, no smell of fire, no report in the papers, we were fairly mystified. Closer to home, I watched us in Central and Phillips create monsters out of lots of people and institutions, attributing to each of them characteristics and quoting them as having said something, quoting out of context. That those people who are now objecting to this project have persuaded themselves that they heard something is not a new phenomenon.
EY: Well lots of folks have similar accounts about this as Robert. The question is: who is more credible -- Robert Lilligren or Peter McLaughlin?
The article continues:WM: By the time of this quote committments were made. People had been sitting on the committee for three plus years by then. They made the committment. The county committed money. Councilman Herron had committed energy to the project, so had his Aide, Vickie Brock who sat on the committee throughout the time she worked in city hall. Paul Wellstone and Martin Sabo had committed to bringing home the bacon to pay for it. Architects, engineers, community folks had committed to wade through ideas and concerns and try to be sensative to everything possible. Yes, committments were made.
Lilligren also alleged that Mayor R.T. Rybak and Council President Paul Ostrow pressed him to sign a letter seeking state funding for the project when they attended a Virginia emergency preparedness meeting early this year. He said he was told that several council members wouldn't sign unless he did.
Lilligren said that when he refused, Rybak told him "commitments were made," and Lilligren replied, "Not by me."
Rybak called Lilligren's allegation of pressure ludicrous. He added, "For many months I've been trying to get a sense of where Robert is at on this very complicated project. When he's backed into a corner, he tends to make comments that don't have a lot of root in reality, so I'm not sure what he's talking about."WM: At the meeting Thursday, Lilligren did make statements that didn't have 'a lot of root in reality.' He implied Rybak and Ostrow were complicit in some nefarious, under-the-table shenanigans.
Said Ostrow: "I did not pressure him."WM: Both the mayor and Ostrow asked him his position on the project project and he did not give clear answers. I don't believe that the council president and mayor are pressuring a council member when they ask him to state his position and reasoning clearly.
EY: Well that could be -- but perhaps Lilligren and Ostrow have a different definition of pressure.WM: Since I'm one of the people who started this, I'll tell you my motivation. I wanted access at Lake St. both north and south to promote business on Lake St., to cut the amount of diesel the bus company puts in the air around the freeway between Lake and 36th., and to funnel traffic off Lake St. and surrounding streets that didn't need to be there. I wanted that stupid configuration of get off the feeway, cross Lake St., jump on the frontage to Honeywell to have a more sensible solution. I wanted the semi trucks off my block, still do.
More on He Said, He Said with Peter McLaughlin in the Spokesman article.....
McGreevy, who says that more than half of his clients are low-income people on Medical Assistance, also tells of an experience with Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin. He recounts a July 2001 meeting at which McLaughlin was present: "During the meeting at St. Mary's, Commissioner McLaughlin stated that he had told Wells Fargo that if they were to acquire the Honeywell campus he would try to get them access. McLaughlin said 'How would the county look to other businesses looking to come into our area if we can't deliver on this?'
"My perspective of the project and motivation for the same changed at that meeting," McGreevy says. "I believe that the primary reason for the project is not as McLaughlin had said at our first PAC (Project Advisory Committee) meeting. The primary reason for the project is access to big businesses."
I wanted a better entrance at Fifth and Franklin because I get on the freeway there frequently enough that I'd learned to hate it. I wanted 35th and 36th turned into 2 way streets and slowed down, but I never dreamed they'd actually suggest putting the entrances back to 38th where they should have been, for safety sake and for commerce, in the first place. I wanted a Lake St. bridge that didn't creep me out every time I walked or drove under it. I wanted the same at 31st St. bridge. I wanted the freeway to look like something other than ghetto. (What I really wanted was to roll up 35W from 62nd to downtown and put the streets back where they were. I also wanted curly hair and to dance on my toes....) If it benefits Abbott and WellsFargo and whoever else, well, goody. I'm glad. It will also cut the number of fences knocked down at 36th St. It will slow the traffic on 35th at the school and 36th at the library which I also want.
I wanted decent bus stops on top of the Lake St. bridge cause the ones we have suck. I wanted elevators or escalators up to the bus stops.
In rebuttal, McLaughlin says, "I have never made the statement attributed to me...nor anything resembling it... I have made no deals and do not apologize in any way for exploring the potential for better access to and from South Minneapolis for residents and workers. To suggest that I then got Wells Fargo to make a multi-million dollar purchase based on an access ramp is absurd. I wish I had that much influence over private capital investments."
WM: I wish he did too. That'd be really kewl.
EY: Ofcourse McLaughlin keeps on denying, but more and more people are coming forward with this one. McLaughlin certainly is capable of making deals at the expense of his constituents.WM: This project will help this constituent and thousands of other constituents. If completed faithfully, this project will help the commercial viability of south Minneapolis and all of us who live, work, and trade here. It will bring jobs. It will move goods more easily. It also will mean that we will be last in line for any further improvements (like widening) far into the future because we will have had our "turn."
WM: This may be the last open house for this phase of the project. Theere will be other gatherings during the next phase. I urge people to come and see this. Be sure to pick up a copy of the orange roster on the process undertaken and who was involved. That will put to rest some of this talk about underhandedness.There's one last "Open House"
Saturday November 16 - Fifth Precinct - 3101 Nicollet Avenue -10:00 a.m.
to noon
WizardMarks, Central
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